Morning journal and courier., 1887-08-26
AN OLD NANTUCKET SEA KING.
Little Biography With an ANTIQUE
Flavor and a Smack of the Sea-
TFrom the Chica 20 Tines

A Little biography With an ANTIQUE
| Flavor and Smack of the Sea.
From the Chicago Times
"There were lot of splendid shipmasters
| just passing off the stage when was boy, ~
says Nantucket man. ''I must say they
seemed to me in character, enterprise and
lofty demeanor fully equal to all I had
heard related of their daring and enter
| prise.
"The greatest family of island shipmas-
tiers wss the Vests. They were descended
| in part from the noble Ichabod Paddock,
| who removed to Nantucket late in 1900,
by invitation, to teach the people how to
| catch whales. Charles West married de-
| scendant of this great whaleman. They had
| a son Stephen, who was master of ship as
early as 1902. Stephen was one of the most
successful of our shipmasters. He was q
bosom friend of the great merchant, Jacob
Barker; they were boys together; in fact ia
cob has told me that Captain West gave him
| his first start in life. I saw the former in
1850, in his eighty-ffth year. at the captains
death-bed, asking him what he could do for
him in such a tender, pathetic spirit that I
| forgave Mr.. Barker all he had omitted to do
| for his friend in life. In 1890 Captain West
commenced his career as a South Sea whale
| fisherman, and continued in it until 1898,
| when the French troubles compelled its sus-
pension. In 1900, however, he was away as
first lieutenant of the Oneida, twenty gun
ship, bound on voyage to China, via Cape
Horn and the Marquesas Islands, where she
expected to lay in her cargo of sealskins.
The Oneida was absent seventeen months and
returned with rich cargo of teas, silks and
nankeens, so profitable that it was talked of
in the counting-rooms of all our ports.
WHALING was inst then raViVinp The shin
John Jay, then in the China trade, was re-
purchased, and Mr.. West went out in her
first officer on a voyage to Brazil Banks. On
his return Seth Russell & Sons, of New Bed
ford, offered him command of the Dolphin,
in which he sailed on a whaling voyage to
the South Seas She registered but one hun
dred and thirty tons and was probably the
smallest vessel that ever sailed such a
voyage. Well out on theHwhaling grounds
the young captain discovered that the vessel
was leaking and was also very defective in
her upper works. Most commanders would
have come home. He put into Delgoa bay,
on the coast of Africa, where he found
number of his toWnsmen in command of
English, French aud American ships. He
called to his aid the carpenters and smiths of
these ships, went into the woods and cut
timbers, repaired his ship and refastened her
throughout Then they went for a cruise off
the Cape OF Good Hope, fell in with schools
of whales, filled the ship in six weeks and
were home full, the first ship of the season.
Captain Vests reputation was now assured.
In the ship Martha he made two voyages to
the Brazil banks and to Patagonia, taking
upward of one thousand eight hundred and
fifty barrels of sperm oil each time, but los
ing the last-captured by the English ship
Nimrod in the war of 1912. On the return
of peace he made three seven months voy-
ages in his old ship Martha, returning full
each time Then the Liverpool packet Pa
cifc bought, and in her in a seven
months voyage he took two thousand four
hundred barrels of oil. He made a second
voyage with like results. He then performed
his last voyage in the South America, taking
seven hundred barrels, and retired from the
sea, having brought twenty-five thousand
barrels of oil into port. He died in 1859,
nearly eighty-fve years of age.